Ideraway Hideaway (I)
IDERAWAY, Q – An orchard patch northwest of Gayndah, Ideraway doesn’t get a lot of passing traffic. No doubt you’ll double the annual mean if you pay a visit to its remarkable bridge.
Technically, the bridge is listed by architectural historians as a ‘steel/timber deck-type with pin-jointed fishbelly trusses’ but the good folk of Ideraway prefer to call it The Upside-Down Bridge.
Built in 1902, with a 45-metre span, the bridge seems to have rotated 180 degrees, its cradle-like crown suddenly sagging into the gully. Luckily the goods train from Monto, which presently comes through once a week, doesn’t seem fazed by the ‘turn’ of events.
[From Gayndah, head for Mundubbera, turning right after 7 kms. Next turn right at the big silos, then left across the railway tracks. The bridge is lurking 400 metres to your right down Mingo Street.]